Dances Within.

Foreword: This piece is dedicated to a breast cancer patient who revealed her thoughts and feelings with me the night before her mastectomy. Her exceptional perseverance during her sickness inspired many around her and filled them with hope. In writing this, I hope to succeed in translating all that she felt that night here.

Late at night, fear awakened my trembling soul, and I was left wondering, wondering, pondering, pondering..

Fear intertwined with anger danced within me, even mocked me, as I roamed a lonely path. Strange sounds screamed into my ears as the hums of pity echoed their cries and I was left with an utter loss of feeling.

Suddenly, my mind and senses were dulled; absolute silence surrounded me. I felt unable to breathe. I released a lamenting cry; Will I ever revive? Will my spirit return to me, or is it lost to the voices that have made me shrink and stare at my own mirror with fear and anger?

As a lonely actress performing her final act on stage, I sobbed because I knew that this very play would never take place again. As I looked towards the faces in the audience watching me, I felt pity and admiration; all at once. Even those familiar ones that once stared at me with admiration, now pierced my heart with their cold eyes and turned their gaze away from me; ashamed of what I was becoming.

Yet I resist and persist, determined not to let this cruel act take me as its victim.

One lingering question kept revolving in my mind as I twisted and turned, tangled in my sweat. A question that tormented my sleepless night and propelled my imagination into its darkest corners. A question I am not the first to ask yet one that might distract me from my fate, even if temporarily: why has this sickness chosen me?

I could feel my body start to change and the firm grasp I thought I had on it, slowly release. With every strained breath I took, scars carved deep into my soul. Yet no one seemed to notice anything about me changing. Perhaps I hid it too well, or perhaps they simply did not want to see it..

Tonight, as my weak body abandons itself to its destiny, my focus deviates towards my loved ones; those innocent souls who do not deserve to suffer with me. And this is when I hear, in the distance, the soothing call of survival destroying the chains of death. I am determined to crawl deep through the torrid mud of sickness and pain to reach it.